Side Effects of Being a Vampire
by raindropsonroaches
Summary: Some things they just don't tell you. He tried.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Hi! It's been a while since I posted anything, but I've been wanting to write this for months and I finally figured out how to begin. So, welcome to Side Effects of Being a Vampire! I hope you enjoy it. Happy Saturday! X. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. **

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><p>It's like a drug. You're nervous at first, and then you feel high, and then you come <em>down, <em>and then… and then _damn. _You're _stuck _here and you're grounded and there's only one place to go.

But I'd only ever wanted adventure. I didn't need a home.

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><p>I remember Edward Cullen, the love of my life, meeting him and loving him, and through the haze of humanity, I can remember an, "I do."<p>

I remember waking up a year ago, seeing his face, noting the glow of his eyes and the warm touch of his lips, and the _safety _I felt in his arms.

I remember he embraced me, pressed his head into my neck, and I took one glance, _just one peek, _to the side.

Out the window.

Into life.

The world changed. My _soul _shifted.

My throat burned.

We hunted shortly after, diving deep into the woods, where we found some deer and a few foxes, and satisfaction. After hunting, we ran for a while, played tag, stole kisses. This was existence now.

Or it was supposed to be.

Even out in the woods that first day of forever, I felt an inexplicable tug, an urge to break free. I wanted to explore the world, to see what it held, and I _knew, _I felt awful but I knew, that Edward couldn't do it with me.

If he knew what I was feeling, he either ignored it or he didn't care. In his ignorance, I found an ally, a soldier I only kind of knew.

We didn't talk much, even after my change. Jasper was still wary of me— old habits die hard.

But he felt it, he was an empath, and I saw the same feeling in _him_, in brief glances and twisted lips, in his furrowed brow and his crossed arms, in his long stares out the windows and in the soft strums of his guitar— I was aching for adventure, and he burned with a similar want, though tamed, and I asked once, "Will it end?" and he drawled, "Only if you make it go away."

I knew how to do it, I understood what he meant, but it was going to be hard, and Edward— was Edward. I loved him, _God, _I _loved _him, with my mind and my body and my soul, the way you're supposed to love someone when your love is meant to last. And ours would.

I kept the feeling at bay for as long as I could, until my body screamed and my eyes watered and my throat caught fire and the side effect could no longer be caged.

There are _side effects _of vampirism, and like all side effects, some people feel them more strongly than others.

I'd spent two years with the Cullens learning all I could about these side effects. I'd heard lectures and speeches, had taken it all in, wide eyed.

That's the thing about being like me, the costs are thirst and fast minds and time, _too much time. _ But for an eternity with Edward, it was a small price to pay, and I did it quietly, willingly, without complaint.

However, this was unbearable, and I couldn't— _couldn't— _push it away.

This _wanderlust _they'd conveniently forgotten to mention, it would not be silenced.

It became too much, and I finally submitted, flying from our bedroom to the front door, Edward trailing quickly behind me.

"Let me go with you," he moaned, "Bella, _please_, there must be a better time, a better—"

I whirled around to face him, jerking my wrist, which he'd caught, from his hand. Placing a hand of my own to the side of his face, I kissed him fully, deeply, and shook my head, "Edward, the time is now, and this is something _I _have to do."

It was my journey, _my_ desire that was causing me to leave. I loved Edward, I did, but I couldn't let him come with me.

The wanderlust, it was explosive, I had to do this alone. Edward needed stability, needed structure, needed to stay home. Waking up in a new town everyday or in a new cave somewhere or on a new beach, with me or without me, he'd go more than a little insane, and I couldn't do that to him, I knew him too well, I could hear every, "Please, Bella, let's stop this," before it even fell from his mouth.

"I _love _you," I whispered and I stole out the door, and as he began to follow after me, my ally stepped forward.

I heard the clap of a sturdy hand meeting a reluctant shoulder, heard Jasper's quiet, "Let her go, Edward. She'll be back. Don't follow."

As I flew out of earshot, I felt the tension I'd been feeling begin to release. Relief that I was finally, _finally, _following whatever force compelled me to leave, relief that Edward would understand, that Jasper would explain to him clearly what I could never find the words for, relief that when I came back, Edward would be waiting for me.

The ten years I spent whirling around the globe were the freest, most delightful moments of my life, and the emails I sent Edward every now and then were met with light words of acceptance and "I miss yous" and "I'll be here when you come homes."

By the time I felt ready to return to the Cullens, where they then resided in Anchorage, Alaska, the wanderlust, the need to _move, _had subsided into the equivalent of embers in a fire; it was there, though dimmer than it had been, prevalent, though no longer the forefront of my attention.

I looked at myself in the mirror as I decided to return to Edward's home, and I call it Edward's because my expedition had taught me that I would never have one, that the whole _world _was home.

A house could never contain me.

I looked into my own face, saw there the same mass of emotion that Jasper's face so often entailed, and I knew that I could make this trip, though one day, I'd leave again.

I could be happy with the Cullens, with my Edward, at least for a while, and filled to the brim with confidence and anticipation and glee, I made my way to Alaska to find that Edward hadn't waited for me.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: I'm not sure if you'll like this, but I really hope you do. Let me know what you think! All feedback is _much_ appreciated. I hope you all have a great Veteran's Day tomorrow! Happy Monday. X. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. **

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><p>We made it work for a little while. A <em>little <em>while.

I approached the edge of the Cullens' snowy property line and drew to a stop, letting the wind carry my scent through the air and then into their home.

I didn't want to startle them and I wasn't sure Alice had been watching out for me. Ten years was a long time.

I didn't wait long.

In seconds, Edward was rushing from the tawny, two story mansion the Cullens now called home. He laughed when he saw me, dashed toward me, pulled me into his arms in a twirl that almost, _almost_ made me dizzy.

He kissed me chastely on the lips before drawing back and taking my face into his hands, examining me for signs of damage, or maybe change.

I _had _changed.

My eyes were no longer the bright scarlet of a newborn, but a deep amber color, darker than the gold my fellow vegetarians sported, but not so different as to set me apart. I carried myself with quiet confidence, moved just as quietly, smiled bright.

"You look good," Edward breathed, clasping me close to his chest as his— _our—_ family excitedly made their way outside.

I was then subjected to a series of hugs and welcomes and warm hearted, "We missed yous."

But something was off. They were doing a good job hiding it, as Edward glowed beside me and Alice squealed in delight, rambling about missed shopping trips and making up for lost time.

Jasper, however, wasn't trying to hide anything, hanging back from the small crowd, arms crossed where he leaned against the front door.

He didn't approach me, didn't move a single muscle, but his eyes, they held a warning, told me something had changed that wasn't me.

I nodded to him, slightly, stiffly. I'd received the message.

I was on guard.

He kept his posture for a few seconds longer before shifting into the charade. Pushing away from the side of the house and straightening the light flannel shirt he wore open over his undershirt, he tugged me forward with a laugh, pulling me into an embrace much lighter than Edward's, though just as genuine.

"They're trying to hold it together. Break them."

It was a whisper, so quiet I wasn't sure I'd heard it, but as Jasper pulled backward with a sharp cornered grin, his face too taught for my liking, I knew he meant it, even if I stood clueless, and that eventually I would understand.

There was something he thought I needed to know, but it wasn't his secret to tell.

Not yet.

So I played my part, walked into the warmth of the Cullen residence exchanging kind words with the people who were absolutely, in that moment, the family I had always wanted but never had.

Though truly, I'd never had them.

We made it seven days.

Seven days of storytelling and adventures recounted, seven days of kisses and nights spent alone with my husband, my _husband, _I had a husband.

Seven days of uncertainty as Jasper danced on the outskirts of the coven, speaking when spoken to, disappearing more often than I remembered he had before.

He never took Alice with him. Never kissed her goodbye or wished her good evening.

Seven days of mystery, with Jasper serving as my only clue.

But when I wasn't concerned with the overly cheerful nature of the people around me, I enjoyed seven days of bliss.

I caught up with Alice, who remained my best friend in the world, sparred with Emmett, made progress with Rosalie. Carlisle and Esme helped me settle into Alaska, enrolled me in high school— I'd returned at what happened to be the start of Thanksgiving break— introduced me to some of the locals. And Edward— he was wonderful. Just as loving and kind and warmhearted as I remembered him.

Just as lovely.

We went hunting a few times in the space of that week, chased bears and caught wolves and even enjoyed a moose or two.

I was smaller, so the burn in my throat died out faster, and while he hunted, I watched.

He was incredible; lithe like a lion with grace only achievable after hundreds of years, though he swore up and down I'd mastered it in ten.

As he leapt for his prey, I saw power in him, and hoped I was able to look so fierce flying between trees.

In those seven days, I remembered why I was so in love with him, why I had married him, why he was perfect for me.

On the eighth day, I cracked the secret, and found out that "perfect" hadn't been the right word.

I'd stolen away from the family to spend a day exploring the city. Edward got it, Jasper had nailed the whole "wanderlust" thing on the head, and Edward was so accepting and I was _so lucky. _

I had a blast flying through the crowds of people, bypassing security guards and lines and all sorts of obstacles on a mission to see all I could in the few hours I'd allotted to spend there that day.

The best part of being a vampire was _definitely _the speed. I'd always questioned Edward's love for it when I was human, but it made traveling so _easy. _I could be in a location that would take me four hours to drive to in ten minutes and I was so _pleased_ with that ability. It gave me more time to familiarize myself with a place before settling in for a few days, or in this case, a few years.

Well, that's what I'd thought it would be.

As it turned out, I stayed for roughly eight days before things went to shit and then I was gone, gone, _gone. _

The day in the city was great, but I missed the family and I missed Edward, who had just the night before played me the lullaby I'd nearly forgotten.

I went home early, left an hour before I told anyone I'd be back, figured Alice would see me coming, though I suppose now that it's better she didn't.

I ran against the wind on my way back to the Cullen home, and the sound of a quiet conversation reached me long before it normally would have as two voices carried through the air.

"Daddy?"

A little girl shrieked in delight, and my face softened as her giggles met my ears. I missed my own father, who thought me long dead by now. I hoped this father loved his daughter, and loved her for many years more than mine was able to love me.

I soon discovered that wouldn't be a problem as the soft lilt of someone _far _too familiar entered my ears.

"Hi, baby-girl," he said gently, and I heard a sound as though he'd picked the girl up and started to spin her around, heard a heartbeat that— that _couldn't exist. _

I crept forward, peeking through the trees, saw a small cottage, a little girl, and— and my _mate, _whose face was so similarly resembled in that of the child he'd begun to toss up the air, whose giggles clawed at me as though I'd been attacked by an animal, maybe one of the Quileute wolves.

In that moment, I wouldn't have minded.

Lucky for me, I'd put my shield up in the city, just in case of prying minds. I didn't come across other vampires too often, but when I did, I preferred to use the power I'd been gifted with to maintain not an upper hand, but security. Edward would never have known I'd been there if another vampire hadn't walked out of the cabin— _Alice _actually— and murmured, "Edward, please, I _just _fixed her hair," to which he replied, "She's a little girl, love. Let her play."

_Love. _He'd called Alice _love _and thinking back on it, he hadn't said it to me _once_, not a _single _time since I'd returned, hadn't whispered a single _I love you, _hadn't looked at me that way.

A choked gasp left my lips, drew their attention, and by the time Edward blurted, "Oh, God, Bella, _no," _I was running, and then I was stopping and then I was bursting through the door of the brown house I'd recently called my temporary home.

I shot down the hallway, broke the handle on our bedroom door as I threw it open, collected my small myriad of things and then sped out the front door again, ignoring Esme's concerned vocalization of, "Bella, dear, are you okay?" and the similar sentiments expressed by the few people in the house.

They _knew, _they had all _known, _had all pretended life was going to be the _same. _

But _why? _

In what world had they been doing me a kindness? Or maybe that had been it— a desire to cause me pain.

And Jasper, he'd known too, had tried to tell me in his cold silence of the wrong my husband and my sister had done me— had done _him— _

_I never should have come back, _I thought as I began to make my way through the trees.

I should have known that first moment, when he'd murmured, _"You look good." _Not once in my life had Edward said I looked "good," that was always too simple. A thousand times, it seemed, I had blushed as he hummed, "beautiful," and "gorgeous," in every language I never thought I'd know.

But never, _never, _had he let "_good"_ explain his feelings. "Good" had never been _good enough. _

Apparently, neither had I.

I hadn't ever run so fast, and I haven't since, and I was so distracted with _leaving, _with _getting away, _that I didn't hear the footsteps that were falling behind me in my own.

I think he may have called my name once or twice, but in my panicked need to wander on, I ignored his voice as he drew nearer to me.

Finally, he caught my wrist, forced me to a halt as he stopped running.

"Bella, _please," _he begged, "Bella, don't leave. _Not without me." _

I stared at Jasper in shocked silence, my watery eyes gazing into his own desperate golden orbs.

We stood that way for what was probably too long, until again, he whispered brokenly, _"Please." _

At last, I nodded, and his sullen face flooded with relief as I lurched forward and began to cry into his shoulder.

"I know, I know," he soothed, "Bella, I'm so sorry."

"Who _is she? _How could they— how _could he?" _

"She's his niece," Jasper uttered, "She came along…_later."_

_"__Later? _You mean after—"

"After she left me."

"For _him!" _

"Yeah," Jasper, sighed, voice unsteady, "After she left me for him."

"How long have they been—" I couldn't finish, couldn't force the words out of my mouth. That would make it— would make it _real. _

"Eight years," he said, "I found out four months ago."

_"__Oh my God," _I cried, "Oh my _God." _

It was all I could say. Eight years. I'd only known Edward for thirteen.

"What _happened?" _I finally stammered, and Jasper responded in a crackling drawl.

"You and I are meant to wander, Bella, it's engrained in our souls. I guess— I guess some hearts are made to wander too."

Jasper had wrapped his arms around my shaking frame, and he tightened his hold when his words strengthened my sobs, gently lowering the pair of us to the ground, where he proceeded to keep me from falling apart.

"How could he do it to me? How could _she _do it to _you? _I'm sorry, Jasper, I'm so sorry," I spluttered.

It was hard for me to understand how mere moments ago I'd been on top of the world, giddy with the knowledge that I had a family and a lover waiting for me.

And now I was crying with Jasper, who took a deep shaky breath as he tried not to break into his own sobs.

"She— I don't think it was hard for her," he said, and I drew back a little.

"What do you mean?"

They'd been together for 60 years! Well, 52, faithfully.

Jasper responded weakly, in a voice that told me he was relaying information he wished he'd never known.

"We were living in Wyoming, all enrolled in college this time. Edward— he took a genealogy class or something, made this big complicated family tree. He had to make up a few members, and he listed himself as his grandfather, but he traced his biological family back as far as he could, and then as far forward. He found out about a many-greats niece he didn't know he had, got in touch, said he was an old cousin. She died a few years later in a car crash, and her boyfriend, he died too."

I wanted him to stop. I didn't want to hear this. But I could see in his face that he needed to say it, so I just clung more tightly to him, cried harder, endured.

He paused a second, squeezed my shoulders a little, swallowed hard and went on.

"Edward only met her once, and they kept in touch, talked on the phone and everything. She was the last surviving Masen, though her name was something like James now. She listed him as an emergency contact, and since she and her boyfriend died and no one else was around, the baby went to him. He hadn't even known about her, didn't even know her name."

"Jasper," I whimpered, in the hopes that he might stop, might spare me— I didn't want to know her name, didn't want her to be a _person _to me.

"He found out though, he did. Nessie, I think. I'm not sure. He went away for a while, dropped out of college without a word, disappeared. She was a 8 months old when he took her in, and he went off to raise her, to give her a normal life. Respectable. But Alice…"

"She saw."

"Yeah. She did. Nothing gets past Alice," he grinned, but the smile was sad, wistful, lost. "She found him, told me she was going to visit him for awhile, but wouldn't say where she was going. Ali, she's always wanted a child, and Edward, when he could give her one—" he choked a little, and trailed on in a whisper, "When I found out, she told me Nessie needed a mother. I told her you could do it, you were Edward's mate after all, and you loved him, you'd make a wonderful mom. But he stepped in. Said you weren't around and you'd be a bad influence, running around the world all the time. That he loved you, but that Nessie couldn't. He wouldn't let her. I didn't know they'd been raising her together for the past 8 years."

"He said— he _said_ that? I thought he _loved _me."

"He did, for a while. And your bond, it was so _strong, _I thought he always would."

"Things change," I shuddered, as we both sat crying drily.

Eventually after I calmed a bit, I sniffed, "Jasper? What about you?"

"What about me, Bella?"

"You found out four months ago. Why would you—why would you _stay?"_

He leaned backward until he was lying down in the snow, and I rolled to the side, making my imprint next to him.

For a while, it fell quiet, only my racking sobs cutting through the crisp air as he tremored in upset silence.

He broke it.

"I was waiting for you."

It shocked me. They were the last words I had expected to hear. He had—

"What?"

"I was waiting for you," he said again, "You _feel _it, Bella. You feel it the way I do. I need adventure and experience and all sorts of things. All the things that you need. I want to travel, to go _everywhere, _but I hoped I wouldn't have to do it alone."

"You want to come with me."

"Yes."

"Okay," I said, nodding to myself, my hair tangling as it rubbed against the snow.

"Thank you."

There was so much relief in his tone, so much urgency in his voice, as though my simple syllable had saved his life— maybe it had.

He'd been a soldier once, and he'd told me about the suicides committed when a soldier, vampire or human, felt their value was gone.

I cringed away from the thought, releasing my shield and letting my mind rest a little at last. When the shield came down, Jasper turned his head to the side.

The shield didn't mute my emotions, but it dulled them, made them hard to decipher. They were clear now, easy for him to read.

"You're confused."

"Of course."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

I couldn't understand _why. _Why he'd written me so sweetly, embraced my return with warm arms, kissed me tenderly in those last few days, feigned adoration and love.

I had unwittingly voiced these thoughts, and was surprised when Jasper muttered, "He's guilty. Immensely so. Alice, she didn't like it, but you were her best friend once, and if there was a chance for you and Edward, she wanted you to take it. And so did he. He tried, Bella. But he's different now, and seeing you standing in front of him in the yard, he _wanted _to love you, wanted to turn back part of time. But it's too late. He ruined it, and ruined me, and ruined you."

That made it worse somehow, that Edward had _tried _to love me, had tried and had _failed. _I'd given up _so much _for him, and now he was giving up _me._

I started to cry again, and Jasper mourned, "No, Bella, no," taking my hand and doing his best to calm me with waves of warmth and courage.

He'd had all the crying he could take for the time being, didn't want his eyes to sting anymore, didn't want _my _eyes to sting anymore. We were in enough pain as it was.

Hours later, I turned my head to the look at him, met his onyx gaze, and choked, "Where to?"


End file.
